Dr Anton Chuvakin Blog (Original)

Security writing since the mid-2000s. New posts are mirrored from Anton on Security on Medium.

Do You Compete with Dumbasses? A Simple Test for Security Vendors! :-)

By Anton Chuvakin
Here is a fun test for my fellow security vendors. Using this test you can reliably determine if your competition is a bunch of loser dumbasses, who will soon fail and thus leave the market for you to own.

So, here comes "The Test":

  1. Launch your web browser while sitting in the office at your headquarters
  2. Type your competitor's URL in the address field and press 'Enter!'
  3. Observe the result
What might you see, you'd ask? Well... the question is not as simple as you think. The choices are:
  1. An appropriate website (duh!)
  2. An old version of their website announcing version 1.1 of their product back in 1998
  3. An unrelated website (possibly p0rn :-))
  4. Nothing, the connection fails or times out
Not try the same from home - you are most likely to see the actual website (same as #1 above).

If, while doing it from the office, you see anything from the range of #2-#4, congratulations: you compete with dumbasses!

He-he :-)

Comments

Anonymous said…
why would it be different from the office and home? What does this have to say about the competitors website?
11:33 AM
Anton Chuvakin said…
Ah, Young Skywalker, you have not learned the dark ways of evil security vendors :-)

Some choose to redirect their web traffic to the places mentioned in the blog post IF and ONLY IF you come from an IP address belonging to their competitors...
10:45 PM
Anonymous said…
Or you work for the dumbass, who decided to block requests to competitors to keep you from looking for jobs at the competition, or sending secrets to the enemy.
6:39 AM
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